For more than two thousand years the people of St. Kilda remained remote from the world. Their society was viable, utopian even; but in the nineteenth century the islands were discovered by missionaries, do-gooders and tourists, who bought with them money, disease and despotism. In 1930, the few remaining islanders were evacuated, no longer able to support themselves.

This book gives a moving account of human endeavour in the unending struggle between man and nature for coexistence.